Born Yesterday
by Drel Murn
Summary: I wasn't born yesterday. I just didn't look. I just didn't see. (Akira Part 1)


My first memories are of people swearing over me as I blink against the bright light over me. There is someone slumped over my body, and even as I first blink with the clack of the wood I am made of, the person who is basically my only parent, the reason for my existence, is pulled away from me. It is years before I know anything about them, when I finally gain clearance to access the puppeteer corps files on my making. It takes a month before I realize what the access means, and six more before I find the specific file.

(When I do, I have a breakdown in the stacks, a wooden hand to my mouth and eyes blinking away tears that can't be shed. I have my parent's name, and I know what they look like. A-rank ninja Suna no Sora, Born: August 30, Sex: Male, Gender: Agender, Age: 24, Height: 150 cm, Weight: 45 kg, Blood type: O-, Kekkei Genkai: none, Occupation: Puppeteer Division, Jutsu Creation Division, Afilliation: Sunagakure, Current Team: None, Former Team(s): Team 5 under Suna no Hikaru, Rank: Jonin, Ninja Registration: 20-180, Academy Graduation Age: 11, Chunin Promotion Age: 16, Jonin Promotion Age: 20, Family: Suna no Ayano, Mother; Suna no Hayato, Father; Natuer Type: Wind Release, Hair color: Red, Eye color: Purple. It may seem small, just facts and statistics, but it's something I didn't have before, something no one had thought me deserving of.)

And with the knowledge of my parent comes other knowledge. The reason I'm alive, the technique that created me, was declared kinjustsu after the first and only attempt to actually create life, while successful, took the life of the one who used it. My parent died as a direct result of bringing me to life. There is no ambiguity on this, nothing that can be argued, and for the first time, I see in myself what others see in me.

I am not allowed to fight, a liability without the ability to feel and fragile enough to shatter with a good strike, but that hadn't been something I'd resented until now. I was happy with my safe desk job, but now, all I can do is look into the mirror and think _murderer_. Think _disgrace to your parent, sitting behind a desk when they gave up their life for yours_. And sometimes when I'm sorting and filing the paperwork turned into me, making sure it goes to the proper offices in the middle of the night, I wonder what it would be like to burn.

The lamp looks so tempting, and I wonder if I would be truly missed. Maybe a moment's mourning for the loss of an experiment, a moment's mourning for the waste a normal shinobi would be in comparison to me (because they need food, they need sleep, they have friends, family (just feed the puppet some grain once or twice a week and it'll work nonstop without food, water, sleep or complaint (I want to need food, and sleep. I want friends.))), but after an hour there would be another faceless worker at the desk (possibly filling it with mementos I don't have) because I have no friends. No family. There would be no funeral for the puppet that killed with it's birth.

Then war comes, and every one ho can move is being thrown at the front because we're loosing. My job is taken by some five year olds, and I am sent to the front with twenty kunai, ten shuriken, and no knowledge of how to fight, or how to use the weapons given to me. It doesn't matter anymore that I'm a puppet, they've already studied me as much as they needed to and they need bodies blocking they way, showing off strength, not paperpushers.

I am assigned to a three man squad with a pair on Genin, a puppeteer and a wind child, Abe Mai and Minami Kurou. (I can still see their faces in my dreams, smeared with blood. Mai's blue eyes were closed, her brown hair splayed across the dirt, and Kurou's eyes obscured by the goggles that beginners wore so they didn't blow sand into their own eyes. He didn't have a chance to learn anything more because in the last battle (the last battle before Suna signed the treaty and lost) they died a swift death, their necks snapped by a yellow blur. (I was surprised not to hate yellow. It wasn't the Yellow Flash's fault though. He was just doing his job. I blame the commander, who ordered us out because he knew the war would be over soon, and wanted one last hurrah.)) My neck is snapped as well, and I am loaded up in a body bag and shipped back to the puppeteer corps when they find me days later. My neck is fixed when the puppeteers realize who I am, and they send me off to the Kazakage's office. An hour later, I am once again the secretary, the genin who have never seen the battle field waving cheerily to me as the leave.

No one tells me when Mai and Kurou's funerals are, and I find out only later that they were both cremated and their ashes spread to the wind. (This is when I gain my first memento, a matching set of sandstone pots with registration number stamped on the outside, number that could easily be changed with an earth jutsu. I place them in the closet allocated to me for any clothes and accessories I might need in my duties as secretary. The kunai and shuriken found on me had been taken when the puppeteers restored my body, along with the padded vest provided to any ninja who went to the front lines, chunin or not.)

The Kazekage's wife is pregnant once again, and I find that I have been named their baby sitter on top of everything else. I simply sigh when ever the two are placed next to me to look after. Temari-san, a year older than her brother, some how manages to be a total menace and a sweet heart at the same time, constantly escaping from behind my desk and toddling to the cactus plan in the corner. Plants are rare here, and she'd learned her lesson about going far from the wall after several shinobi tripped over her and yelled at her, so I'm not very concerned about her. Kankuro-san on the other hand is fascinated by me, and he always comes over to me when ever he grows bored of his snake toy and starts moving my ankle around. It's annoying, but so long as I release control of the area, it doesn't affect me. (There are times when he reminds me painfully of Mai, who had also been fascinated in my parts, and I have to close my eyes and swallow saliva that isn't there.)

As the pregnancy of Karura-sama goes on, I start to hear whispers, steadily growing, about how the village should show strength. What better way to do so than for the Kazekage's own child to be the Sand's Jinchuriki (our very own living sacrifice). By the end of the second trimester, the whispers (more like yells) cannot be stopped, and the pot holding Shukaku is rolled out of hiding. Chiyo-sama, who knows seals the best out of everyone in the village, is called in to examine the seals on the pot and figure out how to best transfer them to a living human being.

(Chiyo-sama is the only other one to know the full details of my parent's work, having requested the knowledge. And she is the one ho declared the jutsu that created me a Kinjutsu. I remember seeing her once, before she was called in to rework the seal, leaning over me and blocking out the light as my parent's dead corpse is dragged away. She never looks at me as she strides across the room to the Kazakage's door, nodding once at the guards.)

(When I see the seal, something deep inside me whispers _no. you're doing it all wrong, do you want your most powerful weapon to cut you deeper than your enemy?_ I say nothing.(I should have. Parent was far better at seals than Chiyo-sama, and I've read and understood their work.))

The last month, after the Ichibi is sealed is the hardest on the Kazekage, who is with his wife every moment. Everything that does not need to be signed specifically by the Kazekage is shunted off to department heads if possible, and if necessary, I make final decisions and write a summary to put under the pile of paperwork that must be signed by the Kazekage. (I've never hated the job more, and all I can see with every order are the faces of my team mates on he ground, dead because my commander knew that the end was coming and ordered us to fight to the last.)

Then comes Gaara-sama, tiny Gaara-sama, and Karura-sama dies in childbirth. The Kazekage becomes even more withdrawn, Temari-san and Kankuro-san watched by hired shinobi when they weren't with me, and Gaara-sama is shunted off to his mother's brother, who is only seventeen. (I cannot help but draw parallels. His parent's friends hate him, and blame him for parent's death. He does not sleep either from what I've heard.) (At least people were never scared of me. One fragile puppet with no master and no backup. No one was nice to me when I was young though.) The Kazekage takes back his paperwork, and I find my nights suddenly empty as the brutal efficiency I had used during Karura-sama's pregnancy eliminates the paperwork in a matter of hours.

This time gives me a chance to finally finish my master's experiments, and a month after that I've gone through all the other records of Suna's sealing I could find. Almost everything is wrong. Wrong wrong wrong, only just right enough not to blow up in your face, just right enough to do the task with massive and unnecessary chakra expenditure. (I also find where exactly my parent's family comes from, and suddenly the fact that they were the only one who seemed to know what they were doing was not longer very surprising. A month after Uzushiho was destroyed, "U- No name Ayano and No name Hayato" came out of the desert with their grumpy child. All of them had brilliant red hair and eyes as purple as the indigo bush flowers.)

After that, I start on seals that we got off of dead men and prisoners, seals we bought or commissioned or traded for. Most of the seals from the small villages are worse than trash, symbols sending any chakra into tangled circles that never reach the parts that are meant to have an effect. When there's too much chakra for the seals to hold, they'll explode. The bigger villages have more right, but they're still just as bad as bad as Suna's. Then, there are Konoha and Uzushiho's seals. These are right, and I spend hours at a time examining them. I take them apart one by one until I know how to make them, until I can make them, and for the first time I strip off the clothes I used to cover my parent's work, and I compare it to what I know.

There are lines that spiral across my body, curling around the points that would have been tenketsu had I been made of flesh instead of wood and inside each of the circles is a painstakingly drawn seal. Wood clacks as I once again blink against tears that aren't there. This is what gives me life, imbues each splinter of wood with a spark. This is my parent's life's work, this is what allows One's Own Life Resurrection to work without the tenketsu that even a corpse has. I blink away tears that aren't there once again, and get to work. It takes little to confirm my theory, Parent's seals are pure Uzumaki, even with the hints of outside influence, right down to the graceful spirals hidden within my "tenketsu points".

Years pass, and I learn how to make seals from scratch. Temari-san, then Kankuro-san leave me to become ninjas. The room feels empty without them, and ninja no longer smile as they pass through. (Why should they care for the puppet. It doesn't have any feelings anyways.) The budget grows tight as the Daimyo starts outsourcing missions to Konoha, and Suna, never the most prosperous, starts to wither. The block most affected are _encouraged_ to move, and the houses are remade with earth jutsu into desert green houses. The civilians flee the village for the shore, and for the other, more farmable, land at the edges. Every one in the village is, had been, or will be a ninja. Fail your first graduation test? Free private tutoring until your tutor thinks you can pass with flying colors, and then at it again.

Money becomes almost foreign withing the great sandstone walls, only received upon exiting. Within the walls, cred-chips are the currency, and are kept track of almost religiously. I stop receiving new clothes, and after a moment's thought, return them to the warehouse. But with the passing of years comes the realization that the Kazekage is still required to attend meetings with a female presence, and who better to take than his faithful secretary now that his wife is gone. The hair glued to my head is carefully bundled up and settled into place as a kunoichi helps me put on the elaborate kimono. (I was surprised to have been picked for this. I know customs, but I have no practical experience. Perhaps that is why I was chosen though. That and the fact that I don't seem threatening at all. A person who doesn't seem threatening, and yet who stands with the Kazekage must surely be powerful.)

The daimyo, in his is purple garb, is an odd person. The food I pass on, claiming an upset stomach, but the tea is nice. I can't exactly taste it, not can I feel the heat on my tongue, but I can feel it's purpose in the energy it carries, and it's warm, welcoming. The daimyo, other than odd, is dangerous in a way that doesn't really affect me. (Probably another reason to bring me.) I have have no reputation for him to ruin, no life for him to take, and no family to threaten. (Who would ever guess that the drab secretary who sits outside the Kazakage's office day and night would be the Wind country's very own Rei-sama. It is at these meetings, when silk covered daggers manage to somehow fend off the sand storm, that I learn that Temari-san has taken it upon herself to become a Wind Master, and Kankuro-san a puppeteer. I hide the image of Mai and Kurou that flashes in my mind under a delighted laugh.

When I return to Suna after a meeting, the kimonos (only ever swathes of cloth held together by pins) taken from me to stand bare in the storage room, I look at my body for a moment before I pull the loose thin clothes (my only outfit now that money is tight) back on and leave.

The village has almost settled into our state of financial woes when another event happens to shake everything up. Gaara-sama is six, hates the world, and has transformed into the Shukaku. He was only stopped by the Kazekage. Now I pity him. (At least I wasn't feared.) The first time an assassination order for Gaara-sama crosses my desk for me to send to the ANBU, I want to cry. He's only a child, and he's not even adult from birth like me. I go to his house that night, the ANBU uninterested in me, but when he opens the door, he just stares blankly at my chest as I speak before he closes the door in my face. I pause, and try again.

"Hello?"

"Killing you would not prove your existence. Go away."

The door slams shut in my face again and I blink, then knock again.

"Can I at least sit with you? I won't talk."

"Will you stop bothering me?"

"Yes."

He blinked up at me for a moment before he turned and left the door open. I enter and close the door behind me, and I climb the stairs behind him. Across from the top of the stairs is a large picture window, and Gaara-sama's settling down next to it and looking out at the night sky. I sit down in a corner where I can see the whole room and hold myself still. The assassin comes, making me twitch slightly, but Gaara-sama doesn't react physically. The extra sand scattered around the room that comes from living in a desert rises up without Gaara-sama looking and the assassin's neck is snapped with a simple crack. I still again, and when the sun rises I stand and leave.

Gaara-sama still kills people, and the Kazekage sends four more assassins after him before he reins the habit in. Each time, the order passes my desk and I go to Gaara-sama and sit in the corner. At ten, after the last of the assassins, the Kazakage sends me to him as a tutor. Attending the academy is not an option if he wants to keep the class, even if Gaara-sama has stopped killing so much. (Again I am expendable. And while the ANBU are uninterested in me, surviving going into his house five times was noticed.)

For two years, I have no time to myself once again, doing secretary work by day, and teaching Gaara-sama by night, but I don't mind. I still don't have a social life, but this is the closest to one as I've ever come, and the most time I've ever spent with anyone. Gaara-sama is what I think a normal teacher would call a joy to teach. He speaks when I ask him to, and is silent while I talk. At night, he's different than he is during the day. During the day, he doesn't notice me at all, and practically snarls at anyone who comes near if he doesn't kill them. (Many times, I sit next to the bath tub and simply rub red off of his skin, out of his hair, wash it out of his sand. I know better than others exactly how much of a monster he is.)

Then I give him the test at the Kazekage's orders, and he passes with flying colors. I don't see him for a month. (No friends for the puppet.)

Then one day, he comes storming in, two rag tag genin that I half recognize as Kankuro-san and Temari-san as well as Baki-san, one of the Kazekage's advisers. The room empties as Gaara-sama's seething rage fills the room, and he growls to himself. There's a large gourd made of sandstone on his back, and his siblings flinch whenever it moves, Temari-san drawing what looks to be Baki-san's cloak tighter over her shoulders. Gaara-sama's pacing stops as the last ninja flees the room, and he looks up straight at me. He stalks forward as I set a document down in one pile, and I look up as I reach for the next document in my inbox.

"Hello Gaara-sama," I says, eyes catching a wince from Temari-san, but before anything happens, Gaara-sama places his hand on my desk and uses that to hurdle over it and plant himself firmly in my lap. Now that he's closer, I catch some of him mumblings.

(". . . idiots, I still don't see why I can't let mother just have them, only a stupid person would have done that, at least they keep their word and don't bother me, don't those idiots know how dangerous it is to interrupt mother, aren't they supposed to be smart . . .")

The top of his head is now firmly planted under my chin, and his arms are wrapped tightly around my in a way that would no doubt have been uncomfortable had I the need to breathe, but nothing he said was really a clear response, so I move on to the next highest person in command. "Hello Baki-san. Would this be your genin team?"

"Yes," Baki-san states bluntly, and incredulous eye on me as Gaara-sama continues to mutter and I sort the paperwork. "I believe that you've already met all of them though."

A small movement draws my attention, and I smile slightly at Kankuro-san as he schools his face back into an impassive one. "Yes I have. Hello again, Kankuro-san, Tremari-san. It is nice to see you once again."

"If you would be so kind now, we need to fill out our mission reports," Baki-san says before either of the genin can ask me any questions.

"The paperwork is in the same place as always," I reply with a nod. The three of the leave, the two genin's hissed questions filling the air before the door shuts fully, and I slow down slightly in my paperwork. "Gaara-sama, would you like to go now? You do need to fill out your mission report, and your team mates are gone. I have an extra copy of the paperwork here."

The mutters and growls pause, then Gaara-sama reluctantly draws back. "Keep the idiots away for me? I'm not allowed to give them to mother, and she's hungry."

"You are doing that quite well on your own currently, Gaara-sama," I reply as I pull the relevant piece of paper out of a drawer without stopping.

Gaara-sama grunts, but turns to face the desk as I put the paper and one of my pencils down for him to write. He doesn't get out of my lap, which impacts my efficiency slightly, but it's worth it to have someone I was long acquainted with here.

The report that gets turned in is filled with curses from Gaara-sama, as well as many variations of idiots and lunatics. It makes me smile before I send it to Baki to add to the team report as Gaara-sama practically runs back to his house.

Two months into Gaara-sama's tenure as a shinobi of Sunagakure, I receive the official invitation to the chunin exams from Konoha. Officially, we have a truce with them, but hiding behind that thin veil lies seething resentment. We have been short on money so long that we have a generation of shinobi who do not remember that we ever had anything more. And lately, the Kazekage has been acting erratically. You do not want your leader behaving oddly when you accept a poisoned sweet, but I am the only one to have noticed the inconsistencies. I set in the pile of papers for the Kazekage. I am not allowed to make that decision. (I hate the feeling that parent would have disapproved. I am not an Uzumaki, nor am I human. That has certainly been proved to me time and time again. (I think of the two pots in my closet and close my eyes. Memories may have faded, but even when he wanted to take me apart, Kurou never treated me as less than human, and Mai always insisted on trying to help whenever I was scraped or scratched.))

One moth later, five genin teams are gone (Gaara-sama's among them), and the Kazekage has spread the word of and alliance with the new forming power, Otogakure, and a sneak attack on Konoha. Baki-san, who is closer to the Kazekage would have noticed by now, but the rest of the Advisory council focus more on their division than on the Kazekage's personality. There is nothing I can do but wait, and listen. I hear first that Gaara-sama's team has passed the first round, then the second. Then comes the month long wait as Suna forces stream out and slowly get in place for the invasion. Left behind are the elderly, the young, the injured, and one hundred shinobi to protect us.

I am the only one left in the Kazekage's building, and now more than ever, I spend time in the files, reading everything I can get my hands on. Every eight hour rotation, I sign off the 30 who get to go home, and sign in the 30 reporting for duty. Then the month of waiting is over, and I listen to the radio as it plays the commentary on the matches. I sigh in disgust when Konoha's pretty prince skips out but the don't disqualify him. Figures. I perk up when the chatter picks up, saying Pretty boy is back. The match starts, and the announcers go silent. There's the clanging of far too much steel on steel for it to be two people, and Gaara-sama doesn't use steel anyways. Then the radio goes dead.

Two days later, a messenger hawk is brought to me by one of the nervous kunoichi who was on her shift.

"What is it?" I ask, looking up from the fairy tales I'd found.

"You are currently the highest ranking officer in village, 37-437-sama," she explains, eyes darting nervously around. "There is not percedure, so I was instructed to bring the hawk to you."

"Alright," I murmur, taking the hawk from her. She flees the room the moment she can, and I frown as I watch her go before I turn back to the hawk. I open the canister attached to its leg. I frown as I unroll the scroll and read the contents, the frown growing more and more as I continue, and when I reach the bottom, I sigh. The Kazakage is most likely no longer alive, and Konoha has all of our shinobi that weren't protecting their homes. Konoha also has no leader at this point, and is bound to be prickly. I am the highest ranking officer still free, and this whole situation is one gods be damned mess. I sigh and run a hand through my hair. Looks like I'll be getting that formal clothing now.

I am fitted for a proper kimono by the grim elders, and it takes them moments to get me a properly fitted (real and battle ready) kimono to match my coloring. I have myself taken to Konoha in a pack on top of my kimono by one of my shinobi. In the hotel room given to us, I get out, and the man helps me put on the kimono. He leaves several times for food, always giving the impression that he is alone. When we are called, he brings me to the tower in the bag, and lets me out in a closet. We arrive just in time, and I settle before the three elders who rule the village for now.

Knowledge is power, and who I am is unknown and how I am here is unknown.

"What is it you want?" the woman asks, breaking the silence.

"I want many things," I reply easily. "Right now, I want to not be the leader of my village."

"We hold your people hostage," the man with one eye speaks, and I glance at him.

"What good are 10,000 rotting corpses to you?"

"10,000 more jobs for us to take," says the final man.

"And yet you are already stretched thin by requests from other countries."

The dance is familiar now after my times as de facto leader during Karura-sama's pregnancy, and with the Daimyo. I manage our people, and our jobs. The one-eyed man tries to hold back our Jinchuriki, but I tell him with a frosted smile that it is common knowledge that our Jinchuriki does as he wants. If he say found what he wants, than he may stay, if he hasn't he may go. Negotiations end, and after a quick trip to a closet, I am once again curled over my kimono as my carrier brings me away from Konoha. As soon as I reach Suna, the Kimono is given back to those who made it, and I'm wearing the same clothes I've worn for the past decade.

Our people start to trickle back into Sunagakure three days after my own arrival, and I set up a station at the entrance to process them. The bring bodies, and injured, and reports from the rest of the country flood in as shinobi return home. Those who arrived earlier find themselves relegated to the desks as I walk among the injured and edit seals on the fly, pasting them to foreheads and neck and wrists and ankles and chests . . . After a day, I send stasis seals to the gates so I'm not running back and forth to treat the badly injured and the (what are now) fatally injured.

The first day brings a wave of shinobi of ranks higher than me, but I find that none of them are willing to take the responsibility of caring for the village from me. Everyone knows me. Every active ninja has gone into the ante chamber to the Kazekage's office before, and they also hear stories from those that stayed behind. The story of my diplomatic trip to Konoha is spread far and wide by the shinobi I traveled with, becoming an instant hit with the younglings because no one knew I was there until I wanted them to, a classic example of what ninja are supposed to be. The flood of returning people slows down on on the fourth day, and the only people to come in on the fifth day were Baki-san, Kankuro-san, and Temari-san. Gaara still hasn't arrived. No one arrived on the sixth day, and on the seventh, I order the people who had been in charge of the booths to pack them up and report for duty to patrol the walls.

Then, on the eighth day since people started arriving, one of the sentry commanders reports to me that something red has appeared on the horizon. A moment's thought gives me an answer. I tell him to come back as soon as they can identify the person. It takes all of five hours before the commander comes running back to me with a pale face, and news of our Jinchuriki. Everyone is scared as I walk calmly out of the hospital and towards the section of the wall facing Konoha. Without Rasa-sama, our former Kazekage, there is no one who can match Gaara-sama's sand.

Every one who had been standing on one of the outer tiers of the wall has now withdrawn to the top, and are huddled together as a group. The watch me as I walk past them calmly and jump down the levels until my feet hit desert sand, and I straighten, waiting for the red-haired jinchuriki to approach me. I can see his steps falter slightly as he sees me, but other than a slight hesitation, he doesn't stop until he's standing right in front of me.

I regard him, and he stares right back at me. Then he smiles, and lets his forehead fall forward onto my shoulder.

"I never asked your name. What is it?"

"I don't have one. Just my number - 37-439."

"Than, would you like one?"

"I . . . I don'r know. I've never had one. Do you have anything in mind?"

"Akira. Bright and clear."

He slumps slightly, and I wrap my arms around him. He's trembling, something I've heard is due to exhaustion, and the moment my arms are secure around him he slumps even more not carrying his own weight. He isn't asleep, which would have been bad if he had been anything other than what he is, so this is likely the best he can get.

I shift him slightly and slide another arm under his legs so I can carry him more easily and leap up to the top of the walls, the murmuring of the guards following me as I leap back down on the inside. I take my charge to the one place I have to call mine, and set him down between the two urns. A quick search of the Kazekage's office turns up a variety of clothes that I take back to my closet and use to pad the floor and cover the child. Then I return to work.

Someone must have heard Gaara-sama's name for me because as I work to catalouge the dead and missing, no one calls me by my number.

Akira-sama. Akira-san.

It's nice. I wonder what Parent would think of me. I ask myself, would they be proud, and . . . I think they would. And I look at myself in the mirror for the first time, and really look. I wasn't born yesterday, but that's how I acted for the longest time.

Brilliant red hair. Wood gone pale from sun. Eyes the color of indigo bush flowers.


End file.
